Figsbury Ring () is an 11.2

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

biological Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, notified in 1975. It is owned and managed by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

Earthworks

Within the wider SSSI mentioned above, the earthworks of Figsbury Ring are sub-circular and enclose 6.4 hectares of grassland on a chalk ridge to the north east of Salisbury, in the parish of Firsdown, Wiltshire at NGR SU188338. It is yet to be fully investigated. Small portions of the site were excavated in 1924 by Ben and

Maud Cunnington Maud Edith Cunnington (''née'' Pegge; 24 September 1869 – 28 February 1951) was a Welsh archaeologist, best known for her pioneering work on the some of the most important prehistoric sites of Salisbury Plain. Early life, education, and m ...

as it was their belief that the site was the remains of an Iron Age

Hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

. Superficially this description of an earthwork with exterior ditch would seem appropriate, however the presence of an enigmatic inner ditch has led many archaeologists to doubt this interpretation. This ditch is separated from the outer rampart by a

berm A berm is a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope. It can serve as a terrace road, track, path, a fortification line, a border/ separation ...

of up to 30 metres in width and, to many, it seems likely that the site actually began as a late neolithic

Henge There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ...

. A small geophysical survey was carried out by Anthony Clark and John Gator in 1981 to determine whether or not an earth bank was ever associated with the inner ditch. The results of this survey were inconclusive. In 1982 the finds from the Cunningtons' excavations were then reappraised by

Margaret Guido Cecily Margaret Guido, (née Preston; 5 August 1912 – 8 September 1994), also known as Peggy Piggott, was an English archaeologist, prehistorian, and finds specialist. Her career in British archaeology spanned sixty years, and she is recogni ...

and Isobel Smith. Several artefacts, notably

Grooved Ware Grooved ware is the name given to a pottery style of the British Neolithic. Its manufacturers are sometimes known as the Grooved ware people. Unlike the later Beaker ware, Grooved culture was not an import from the continent but seems to have de ...

and

Beaker pottery The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the Inverted bell, inverted-bell beaker (archaeology), beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the E ...

, established that there had been occupation at the site much earlier than the period proposed by the Cunningtons. A further reappraisal of the artefacts was carried out in 2003/04 by Philip Dunn, a student at

Bournemouth University Bournemouth University is a public university in Bournemouth, England, with its main campus situated in neighbouring Poole. The university was founded in 1992; however, the origins of its predecessor date back to the early 1900s. The univer ...

. This confirmed Guido and Smith's findings and went on to identify a number of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

artefacts that were diagnostic of Neolithic occupation at the site. Following on from this study a large scale

geophysical survey Geophysical survey is the systematic collection of geophysical data for spatial studies. Detection and analysis of the geophysical signals forms the core of Geophysical signal processing. The magnetic and gravitational fields emanating from the E ...

was conducted which covered 46% of the interior using a

Fluxgate Gradiometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, on ...

. The results of this survey were, again, inconclusive although no evidence was detected for the existence of an inner bank. Traces of possible structures were detected and it was proposed that the site may have particularly early origins. Figsbury Ring Digital Terrain Model

When Figsbury was considered within the context of the wider landscape and a range of other nearby monuments it appeared possible that the site may have begun as a

Causewayed enclosure A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. It is an enclosure marked out by ditches and banks, with a number of causeways crossing the ditches. More than 100 examples are recorded i ...

. This may then have been modified into a Henge monument in the later Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. There is certainly sufficient evidence to state with some degree of confidence that the site was occupied (albeit temporarily or intermittently) towards the middle of the third millennium BC. Further modification of the site appears to have taken place during the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age.

In popular culture

Figsbury Ring features prominently in

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...

's 1907 novel, ''

The Longest Journey ''The Longest Journey'' ( nb, Den Lengste Reisen) is a magical realist point-and-click adventure video game developed by Norwegian studio Funcom for Microsoft Windows and released in 1999. The game was a commercial success, with sales in ex ...

'', renamed the Cadbury Rings (the surrounding area is called Cadford). The narrator of the novel speculates as to whether the structure was British, Roman, Saxon, or Danish, and suggests it is a tomb concealing ancient dead soldiers and buried gold. In the novel, the area between the rings is planted with mangel-wurzels and there is a tree growing in the centre of the inner ring.

References

Natural England citation sheet for the site
(accessed 31 March 2022) * "Defining the Circle: A Multidisciplinary Evaluation of Figsbury Ring" – dissertation by Philip Dunn, submitted to Bournemouth University in 2004
English Heritage listing of investigations

Earthworks

In popular culture

References

Further reading